Jon Dowd

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Jon Dowd is an assistant producer working on EA Sports' MVP Baseball video game series. His name was used to create a fictional player designed to emulate slugger Barry Bonds, due to Bonds' decision to pull out of the union for monetary reasons. As the producers of the videogame felt they couldn't release the game without a character representing the San Francisco Giants' star player, Dowd "became" him.

[edit] The History of Jon Dowd

EA Sports had worked out a contract with the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) to use all Major League players who are members of the Players Association union. Giants left fielder Bonds withdrew from the union's licensing agreement because he felt independent marketing deals would be more economically viable for him.

Bonds, a 7-time MVP with first ballot Hall of Fame numbers, is not easily ignored, especially since the Giants' offense rests on Bonds' shoulders. EA Sports was left with a strange predicament and needed a player who could fill Bonds' shoes and could be easily interpreted as Barry Bonds. However, the replacement could not be exactly like Barry Bonds, in order to avoid legal action. EA Sports created Jon Dowd, a devastatingly powerful Giants outfielder, in his stead. Although they attributed Dowd with batting abilities similar to Bonds, they changed several key factors: his name, race, age, handedness, and uniform number. Since Jon Dowd is crafted from the parts used in the Create-A-Player mode, Dowd has no career batting statistics and is thus always a rookie when starting in Dynasty mode, but due to this he all-but-invariably wins the National League Rookie Of The Year award in the first year of Dynasty mode.

For the 2005 edition of MVP Baseball, EA Sports altered Dowd to be more similar to the real-life Bonds, altering his age, as well as making him a left-handed batter. His default batting attributes are still the best in the game.

In a similar fashion, Barry Bonds is known as "Wes Mailman" in Acclaim's All-Star Baseball series, and "Joe Young" in 2K Sports' MLB 2K6 game.

[edit] Name games?

Ironically, in a February 14, 2006 N.Y. Times story, MLB announced a possible investigation into Bonds' history of steroid use as he approaches the all-time home-run mark. [1]

The N.Y. Times story suggests that the ideal investigator for the inquiry would be aggressive Washington lawyer John M. Dowd, whose investigation led to the banishment of Pete Rose from baseball for gambling.

[edit] Major League Baseball Players not in MLBPA

Players are not eligible to join the MLBPA if they were hired as replacement players during the 1994-95 MLBPA strike. These players receive compensation almost identical to union players, but they are not permitted to vote on union matters. The more prominent ones are listed below, with the name assigned to them and team for MVP 2005 in parentheses. Like Dowd, they have similar skills but different jersey numbers and races.

If they were selected to Baseball America's Top 100 prospect list, players who made an impact in 2005 such as Zach Duke, Felix Hernandez, Ervin Santana and Huston Street are represented in the game by having fictional minor leaguers who share their attributes. However, only players with major league playing experience are eligible to join the union and be included in the game, so their likenesses were not used since they had yet to debut as of roster finalization. For any 2006 video games, though, they are included. Gustavo Chacín, Ryan Howard, Willy Taveras and some other prominent rookies in 2005 were included in the game because they had a cup of coffee stint in the majors in 2004 but did not have enough time on the roster to disqualify them from Rookie of the Year voting.

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